ElcomeSoft
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2011
- Posts
- 185
- Likes
- 20
Just to fill you in, I bought these Monster Turbines cheap off eBay sold as new for £35 ($45-50) and expected them to be fake. As far as I can tell, they are fakes and show a couple of telltale signs but I would just like some confirmation on my assumptions.
Looking at the box itself, it looks quite impressive but as soon as you start getting into it you can notice the subtle nuances that mean that they are not the real deal.
What strikes me as 'not right':
I removed the stock tips and applied my current pair of Comply T-400 tips to give them a test out. Quite frankly I was blown away with how good they sounded. The best IEM's I've owned were a pair of V-Moda Vibes which I purchased upon recommendation from these very forums in something like 2007 and I wasn't overly impressed with them. These 'fake' Turbines sound better, far and above what I've heard before and they seemed to be happy when powered by my HTC HD2 phone with FLAC and 320kbps MP3. I am by no means an audiophile and having never sampled earphones of a substantial quailty before could simply be as good as the Brainwavz ProAlpha's that I have arriving soon (They finally left Hong Kong on the 23rd yay!)
Had I not known about Head-Fi and scoured YouTube for multiple videos of unboxings, I would never have guessed that these were probable fakes and would have just accepted a scuffed box as an issue that can occur during production.
My only camera is my HTC HD2 so please excuse the poor lighting, poor quality and the fact I use Photobucket.
Pictures here.
Any further pictures available upon request
Looking at the box itself, it looks quite impressive but as soon as you start getting into it you can notice the subtle nuances that mean that they are not the real deal.
What strikes me as 'not right':
- 'Hear more.' on the side of the black box seems to suggest that you should have the black leather pouch with red stitching and 'Monster Turbine' metal tag, which these have, but there should be another 'pop open' style pouch to go with them.
- The black box is rather scuffed, is of inferior construction to my expectations and the magnetic section does not appear to be as I expected either. (Having owned several high-end Logitech mouse products, I know what a high quality box with magnetic closing mechanism feels like. I expected similar here)
- The package comes with a small clip. All official unboxings I have witnessed have never had a clip.
- The pouch itself looks like an older style pouch (black pouch, black stitching and quite deep) but with the red stitching and the new metal badge added
- Bottom of the box is white
I removed the stock tips and applied my current pair of Comply T-400 tips to give them a test out. Quite frankly I was blown away with how good they sounded. The best IEM's I've owned were a pair of V-Moda Vibes which I purchased upon recommendation from these very forums in something like 2007 and I wasn't overly impressed with them. These 'fake' Turbines sound better, far and above what I've heard before and they seemed to be happy when powered by my HTC HD2 phone with FLAC and 320kbps MP3. I am by no means an audiophile and having never sampled earphones of a substantial quailty before could simply be as good as the Brainwavz ProAlpha's that I have arriving soon (They finally left Hong Kong on the 23rd yay!)
Had I not known about Head-Fi and scoured YouTube for multiple videos of unboxings, I would never have guessed that these were probable fakes and would have just accepted a scuffed box as an issue that can occur during production.
My only camera is my HTC HD2 so please excuse the poor lighting, poor quality and the fact I use Photobucket.
Pictures here.
Any further pictures available upon request